I don't really like the word blog, but it seems pointless to fight it, Zis is a blog.
If you want to know more about an Algerian girl who lives in London and struggles with thoughts that are beyond the remits of her understanding, stories of society and social climbers of love and deception and of a status of seemingly eternal singlehood, then you are in the right place...

Tuesday, 2 June 2015

Not all who wander are lost

What I want
to be when I grow up? Mmm…A pilot …or… a military doctor…I ran out of choices
that I liked enough to admit I want to do and that I felt complied enough with
the list of "things to be" when you grow up, the list that society
has written in the fabric of its own flesh, a Doctor, an Architect and a
Lawyer. That's it, everything else would mean you'd struggle through life and
your mother would struggle to be proud in the midst of the social gatherings
and crumble under peer pressure until financial capital or gain is attained in
the hope of readdressing the situation and regaining some social standing.

Well, I never became a pilot or a military anything, what if I got it wrong?
What if somehow I missed THE THING that I was supposed to do with my life? This
thing that I was supposed to just know at the age of 16 when I still didn't
work out my own body or what my little pinkie was for!

---------

Years later I still don’t know what my pinkie is for and find myself forever
struggling with this intrinsic urge to go somewhere, to find myself as
the hippies would say, the need to get lost, the need to wander…maybe my
calling is to be an explorer!

I would pack my backpack and
bare essentials, lots of tampons since I seem to have my period every two weeks
(what's the opposite of menopause?), a strong deodorant, cotton wear, a map (of
the world), some money and other stuff that would save my life or at least make
it as comfortable as possible then go into the wilderness. I’d walk and walk
for days, stop off to set up my tent, cook some dehydrated food or live off the
land where possible (I can’t hunt or fish to save my life and I am scared of
cockroaches), I write my travel journal and think about life, wonder what my
family are doing and if they understand what I am doing and why?

I want to get lost so badly, start new, I dream of this often and everywhere I
look, I see what I take as signs, I want them to be signs, like a divine
intervention guiding me somewhere I am supposed to be…Every time I open my cupboard
I give a nod in the direction of my ginormous hiking boots as if to
reassure them that I didn’t forget about them and that I was working on it,
I put on my painful courts (they’re shoes with heels for you boys) that give me
bunions of indiscriminate colour and shape, and wish it was time to ditch the
heals and don my safe hiking boots again.

I took them out for a walk, I wore them to the cinema, I even went to watch
“Wild”, then I went home to watch “Into the Wild” on dvd, then read snippets of
other wilderness books and explorer tales, by then I was so enthralled with the
idea and challenges of getting lost that I managed to force myself to watch the
excruciating “The Island with Bear Grylls” and if you can watch that, you can
probably do anything ...probably (you know …because it’s so shit)!

But then I'll miss facebook, I'll miss all the attention from friends and
strangers, attention that is wanted and sometimes provoked and the likes
we're all seem to be getting addicted to albeit in denial about, we crave them
like a fix we have to score. I guess I will miss my comfort and my friends and
my family, or will I?

Perhaps I am just using this as a pretext not to take the plunge and disconnect,
because I know my parents will never understand why I feel the need to do it,
my parents who I use like a shield from the eyes of God like he can’t see what
I do because they’re my protection, I will be forgiven all sins because they’re
my salvation, I often wonder if I didn’t have my parents would my faith be
stronger? What would stop me from going where I want to go but not sure I want
to go?

My friends will probably think I am attention seeking, then I feel guilty for
things I didn't do as per usual (pathetic really), then will probably start
doubting myself along with my motives, I will doubt myself like I do so many
things and will give up and blame it on society.

Why do I feel so shackled and unfree? Forever struggling with choices! Does
everyone else feel the same? We who proclaim our freedom, are we truly free? I
am single (yes still), I have no responsibilities that I can’t shake off, no
commitments I can’t break from, yet I feel like to make the move would be to
let down so many people and the pangs of guilt would kill me slowly, so I sit
miserably still to make others happy and forget my dreams and wants, afraid of upsetting
or offending others whilst ignoring my own desires and feelings! Resenting
myself instead of others in that giving, generous and modest way we’re brought
up to be, the way that eats at you slowly until there is nothing left but
bitterness and regrets of not packing up when I had the chance to.

Too many questions, so little answers.. here's my contribution (two pennies or zoudj doro) : try hiking with courts (thanks for the word) and think about the paradox of sitting home writing about unused hiking boots.. I'm not sure I quite understood the part about your parents being like a shield against God's wrath.. are you feeling some kind of " undeclared guilt" ? I bet yes.. haya dirina chouia plaisir et update plus souvent tes articles.. kiss !

You need to visualise what you want to do before you take the plunge. And I know you have a vision.Youre afraid ofFinancial insecurity, lack of social status. Peer pressure. When you do take the plunge not many people will understand. But there will come a time that if you dont do it it will stop you from being healthy inside and out. Believe me. Ive done it. Its been tough. Really tough. Bu I had to do it. Ive lost many friends along the way, dubbed me as mad, a social reject, a failure of the capitalist dream. And you know what? My boots are now destroyed, my bank account crying, but am happy inside. And I can look at myself again in the mirror. A toast to you! I know you will make it!

Capitalism has never been the savior, it is just an illusion people think they are free, they live in a wealthy country but the masses as you may know they are in debt all their lives to buy a house, the taxman knocks at their on a yearly basis. The question remains : Is our sacrifice worth just to buy a house, buy a car, live in downtown (not far from Chinatown though :), as human we deserve more that than.

Follow your heart dz bella and do what you truly love rather than the opposite, your dream and your passion deserved to be expressed even if it's for a short period of time. "Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in miserable way"Ciao bellaBuona fortunaM